It seems as if every day that goes past there is another thing that wants to crush small business in the UK. Some politicians do seem to genuinely want to get the ailing economy a bit more lubricated, but unfortunately a lot of the money seems to trickle up to big business and GPSR is another example of this.
What is it All About
GPSR stands for General Product Safety Regulation.
It applies to all goods entering the EU.
There is a £20,000 fine for not complying so it isn't worth trying to get away with it.
It is effective from 13th December 2025 and we need to prepare now.
Overall this legislation is about product safety going into the EU, which is a positive thing. None of us want to live somewhere where something we buy could hurt us, or make us sick. For example, toys with parts that could be swallowed or paint details that are poisonous. Of course it is a broadly positive thing and of course we support the notion.
Everyone who is selling products to anyone in the EU (wholesale or just single sales like a print or book) needs to comply with this legislation and in order to make something as watertight as possible the EU have made it quite rigorous and complicated. (Due to the complication with the sea border and Brexit definitely not being done this also applies to goods you sell in Northern Ireland).
The people to take direction from are the EU themselves, so here's the page that explains it all, including fact sheets and things that you need to be aware of, Read carefully and take advice from someone qualified if you need to.
Why the Fuss if it's Good?
Most of this is just good practice. For example, we get our books printed from a reputable printer, who doesn't use heavy metals in the ink. Papercuts aside, there's probably nothing that wouldn't be easy-ish to comply with in this for us.
The details are rigorous, though, and there are things that you need to obtain if not manufacturing everything yourself, such as safety certificates from factories. Yes it would be a lot of work for a tiny team, potentially impossible to obtain all the paperwork for certain goods and generally a real headache. But can't you blame them because they're being rigorous with people's health.
A lot of small businesses would do this, because by now we are used to having to jump through 10 million times more hoops than big business. After all, big tech can spread misinformation, wilfully influence elections in democracies and pretty much seem to pay no tax anywhere. We are used to being held to different standards. So fair enough it's just one more thing.
However, the really big factor here is that there is a final clause saying that in order to sell goods in the EU, even if you have complied with all of the above testing and tracing, you need to have a permanent representative within the EU.
Most small businesses in the UK don't even have a solid permanent bricks and mortar premises in their own country. How many people work out of shared offices, home, mobile arrangements etc. So none of these are going to be able to maintain a permanent representative based within the EU on top of this, and that is before you get into the notion of having a consistent, reliable and trustworthy rep.
So What is to be Done?
For a lot of small businesses, including Pudding Press, the only thing to be done is to stop selling goods to the EU and Northern Ireland.
This isn't because the above is a hassle or expensive, although it is both of these things. It is a lot because that last clause, especially, is the killer and we would have no way to comply with the law.
For Pudding Press it won't affect us too much. We already don't sell to Germany any more because VAT issues have been too complex. We also don't sell to Japan because of tax arrangements, and our audience is overwhelmingly English speaking. This means that our markets have always been the US, Australia, the UK and India, interestingly in that order even though we're a UK company. We also sell the odd thing elsewhere but none of this is going to change much right now.
Not so for a lot of our compatriots, and obviously it also dissuades expansion, which is not a good climate to operate in.
If you really don't want to stop selling to the EU in December though, start by reading that EU commission information above and then take proper legal advice.
GPSR and Brexit
The other thing about this is that if it was not for Brexit we would still be in the EU and therefore even if we had to comply with the product safety side of this, we would be our own representatives in the EU as the company would still be in the EU.
Therefore, we would be able to comply and still have a massive market open to us if we did want to expand or try to get some EU readers.
In the run up to Brexit and all the project fear shouting, some economists said that leaving the EU would be death by a thousand cuts more than anything crashing to the ground. GPSR is a really good example this. Nothing did immediately grind to a halt after we left but every year there are more complications and more industries and businesses are shut out of this marketplace. Overall the county gets a little bit poorer and money circulates a little more slowly each time.
The EU are not the heroes in this either. When you are shut out, this legislation feels a bit protectionist, even though at heart it is just about making things safer for EU citizens. However, it has been implemented in a way that small businesses are the only ones who will be affected. All those cheap manufacturers of tat make millions so they will no doubt be able to hire lawyers to sort out the paperwork and reps in the EU.
However, whatever you think about the EU and corporate capitalism, the fact remains that all of this is only affecting so many of us because we are no longer in the EU. Overall it means fewer sales and less money for UK small and independent businesses. On top of new US tax legislation, the fact that as a country we buy a lot more imported goods than things from our own business community, and the general low wage economy, it is death by a thousand cuts.
Good Stuff
Well the good stuff is that UK small arts businesses do try to support each other, so hopefully we can all band together and buy from each other instead of some soulless big brand.
You can likely still sell ebooks (check that out in case we are wrong). GPSR is made to interact with the Digital Services Act so the two will combine when looking at unsafe online material as well as online marketplaces.
Services are not covered, although this is naturally still a little complicated and there are certain clauses that might affect your services. Products placed on a marketplace in order to provide services would be covered, as would any products people come into contact with during accessing the service.
Some online marketplaces seem to be helping their clients and there might be schemes available at some point where you can pay for a service, like the EU rep, if you sell through a particular marketplace. As of the end of November, though, information about this is patchy.
Companies like ours who have distributors will be able to let them do some of the work, although in this case it is likely that it will boil down to the distributors just not supplying the EU.
Overall the good thing might be if it contributes to the kick up the backside our politicians need to get money circulating in our economy again, but in the meantime, this blog post was just to give some simple information about the legislation and let you know that if you are an EU reader, you'll need to buy our books before the end of next week.
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